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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29792637">Pacifism</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancefantasy/pseuds/dancefantasy'>dancefantasy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Assassin's Creed - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abstergo Industries, Character Study, Dialogue Light, Gen, I've never seen any other villain so constantly on the verge of tears, Introspection, Pacifism, Sofia is such an interesting villain so I had to write about her, Templars</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 16:34:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,114</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29792637</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancefantasy/pseuds/dancefantasy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Layla questions Sofia's intense pacifism, causing Sofia to muse on her personal motives and feelings.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pacifism</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sofia liked Layla; she really did. She admired her intelligence and work ethic, and Layla could be good company to have around when Sofia hadn't bothered to make friends with many other people in her life. However, all of that didn't mean that the other woman was always <em>perfect</em> company. They were very different people, and at times, Sofia found Layla's questions to be almost concerning in nature.</p><p>"You know all of your goals to get rid of violence in everybody?" Layla randomly asked one day as the two women spent some time together after an Abstergo meeting. "I just had a funny thought. What if you went in the Animus and lived out some violent past life? I wonder how it would make you feel. What if it even changed your mind about everything?"</p><p>"W-what? Don't even say that!" Sofia gasped in horror, eyes shaking as the possibilities flooded her mind. "That's so horrible!"</p><p>Layla snorted a laugh at Sofia's extreme reaction. "Okay, you're definitely either the biggest pacifist or the biggest scaredy-cat. Not sure which one."</p><p>Sofia didn't find either of those concepts insulting, but didn't appreciate how amused Layla seemed by it all. She pursed her lips and crossed her arms, asking back with displeasure, "So, would <em>you</em> commit violence willingly?" </p><p>Layla shrugged. "Yeah, for the right reasons. If the situation called for it."</p><p>"There are no such reasons," Sofia responded with deep conviction.</p><p>Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Layla began to step away. "Well, I'm the one here to engineer tech, not deal with all the philosophical crap behind it all. If you don't mind, I need to get back to blueprints and power drills. You can stay cozy in your cardigan and research ethics or whatever." With a vague, almost disdainful gesture at Sofia's top, Layla made her way out of the room, leaving Sofia alone to think.</p><p>She looked down at her clothing and felt suddenly alienated by it. She personally rather liked her sweater, comfortable yet professional. However, it probably looked so much more casual to someone like Layla, who was often found in grease-stained coveralls, evidence of hard, physical labor. Indeed, there was great accomplishment in what Layla was capable of, but Sofia found her own area of study so much more peaceful and appealing in that way. Yet peace, unfortunately, did not seem to be as valued at Abstergo or anywhere else around her life as it was to her personally.</p><p><em>Peace</em>. To wear a warm sweater and a loose pair of slacks, brew a cup of tea, and dive into research in the calm and quiet of a dimly lit office. To do that every day would be Sofia's own Eden, never having to worry about death and the future of life on Earth. She'd never dull of that comfort, even if each day played out in that exact same way. The same simple clothes and steaming tea among endless books and data to examine...</p><p>She truly craved routine. But there was a problem with excessive routine, she realized from time to time. To follow whims instead of plans seemed more human, and humanity was so utterly important, Sofia thought. She would hate to be robotic, emotionless and predictable. But to be human also meant there was more room for human error, room where whims could lead to carelessness and emotion could lead to a number of horrible things, like the aggression and violence she so desperately wanted gone from the world. </p><p>Wars, murders, the endless fight between each Templar and Assassin that surely had existed for half as long as life itself. That fight was the worst of all types of violence, even more than any war waged purely for politics, the ones that left countless men dead for the most selfish of reasons. No, the battle of Templars and Assassins felt so much more personal, and that hurt most of all. Sofia hated the constant discussion of death that surrounded her because of it, of the Assassins her distant colleagues plotted to kill and the news of those same colleagues who had fallen victim to their own prey.</p><p>Not only colleagues. Her own mother as well had been a victim. Sofia wouldn't wish that haunting reality of lost time upon anyone else. To have any other young girls lose their mothers. To become a mother one day and be torn away from her own child because it was so cruelly natural for Assassins to kill Templars and vice versa.</p><p>Maybe that was why she had never become very close with many people. It was another aspect of routine, a defense mechanism to prevent any more heartache. Because as a Templar, death was an inevitable part of life. And Sofia couldn't bear the thought of losing any more family.</p><p>That was why she couldn't let humanity continue in its ways of relentless violence, even if it made humanity a little less human, taking away a part of personhood that had persisted through all of the different eras of progress. People had progressed so much, and did so quicker every day; they should have eliminated the need for aggression long ago. But no, it remained like a crutch. An excuse. Humanity fell back on violence whenever other answers to their problems were more difficult to find.</p><p>Regardless, Sofia believed the world could do without it. They could do with less weapons and more books. Less fighting, more understanding. A utopia where the mind ruled the body perfectly.</p><p>Sofia didn't even care to be seen as the hero who ended all violent suffering. She didn't want a statue in her honor or even a simple plaque with her name engraved. She wasn't like her father, always wanting more recognition from other Templars. As long as peace was found, she would be happy to remain in the corner of an office digging through history and philosophy without being spoken to. But maybe she'd finally have the courage to be less alone in that dream. If no one's life could be stolen away from her, perhaps she could finally bear to let others into her own.</p><p>That was a possibility to imagine that should be left for the future, she decided. In the present, Sofia had to continue working on the Animus. Because that machine was her only hope of erasing the biggest mistake of human life: aggression, and all the pain it wrought.</p><p>Layla might have been putting it lightly by calling her the biggest pacifist, Sofia mused. If she didn't believe in pacifism, she might as well have had nothing to hope for besides uniting with her mother in her own inevitable death.</p>
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